first Arnaux did nothing all day but walk up and down the wire
screen, looking high and low for means of escape; but in the
fourth month he seemed to have abandoned the attempt, and the
watchful jailer began the second part of his scheme. He
introduced a coy young lady Pigeon. But it did not seem to
answer; Arnaux was not even civil to her. After a time the jailer
removed the female, and Arnaux was left in solitary confinement
for a month. Now a different female was brought in, but with no
better luck; and thus it went on--for a year different charmers
were introduced. Arnaux either violently repelled them or was
scornfully indifferent, and at times the old longing to get away,
came back with twofold power, so that he darted up and down the
wire front or dashed with all his force against it.

When the storied feathers of his wings began their annual moult,
his jailer saved them as precious things, and as each new feather
came he reproduced on it the record of its owner's fame.

Two years went slowly by, and the jailer had put Arnaux in a new
loft and brought in another lady Pigeon. By chance she closely
resembled the faithless one at home. Arnaux actually heeded the
newcomer. Once the jailer thought he saw his famous prisoner
paying some slight attention to the charmer, and, yes, he surely
saw her preparing a nest. Then assuming that they had reached a
full understanding, the jailer, for the first time, opened the
outlet, and Arnaux was free. Did he hang around in doubt? Did he
hesitate? No, not for one moment. As soon as the drop of the door
left open the way, he shot through, he spread those wonderful
blazoned wings, and, with no second thought for the latest Circe,
sprang from the hated prison loft--away and away.